Jim and Jim
by Strummer Pink
Summary: An older Jim Hawkins is startled to meet a young man with an uncanny resemblance to a certain one legged pirate. Eager to learn the whereabouts of his old nemesis, Jim Hawkins engages Jim Silver in a card game, with unexpected results.


Back in my hometown of Smuggler's Bay I was used to strangers knowing my name before I knew theirs. I'm not boasting for it has little to do with my own person, it's just what becomes of being the only son of a famous man and resembling him in a particular noticeable way.

It's understandable in a small island town like that, where everyone knows everyone. In the teeming streets of London though, one doesn't expect to be recognized so readily. To this day I still have no idea how a man I'd never clapped eyes on before should know me _here_, in London of all places!

Truth is not only stranger than fiction, but far more random. The only semi-logical conclusion I could come up with is that the stranger's recognition of me had something to do with those secret years of my father's life he never talks about. It is my belief that something happened all those years ago that set my father to running and though he's stayed put in Smuggler's Bay nigh on twenty years now, there's still a part of him at it. There is still something restless and running in his mind, looking over his shoulder now and again, watching out for the long-expected blow to finally fall.

Whatever sordid past this stranger may have shared with my father, it still does not explain how he knew the particulars of my existence so well, or told the wishes of my innermost heart to such perfection, as if quoting a text already familiar to him.

What brought me to London in the first place, perhaps you wonder? Well, a bloody great ship, for one thing.

My father told me I was to never set foot in England. This of course, only made me want to come here all the more. He was originally from this land himself and it irked me that he sought to bar me from it. He claimed kin with a family from a village somewhere near Cornwall, (though he changed his surname long ago, as is the practice in our trade). As far as I know he never had any interest in London, even then, but I loved that dirty, noisy city and fancied it all mine. What pleasure to know my name meant nothing more than any other's here. Here I was free.

Ever since I can remember I'd itched to get away from my parents' inn. Thinking back now, I can't fault my mother for keeping me home so long. She only sought to protect me from the harshness of the life my father led. What she never reckoned with, was me having a mind and desires of my own that wanted none of the dull, peaceable future she'd mapped out for me of pressing tap for the regulars at the Spyglass Tavern for the rest of my days.

But in signing onto the merchantman _Golden Fleece_, I'd merely exchange one form of drudgery for another. My new masters were far more merciless than any boss I'd had on land. Now I was cook's boy to a ship of sadists whose only ambition was to render every moment I spent in their presence a living hell. Each day I had to contend with their taunts and laughter, cruel orders and reprimands. I was nearly worn down by it, for I was unused to such treatment. The experience would have been unbearable if not for my two friends on board, Fetz, the cabin boy and Mary, the captain's daughter.

Unfortunately, I find the longer people are stuck in a small space together, the more likely they are to fight. We humans have our territories like dogs do, and being too close for too long might drive even a saint to snarl, let alone three young people of variable temper. As you might guess, ere long, we quarreled, firm friends though we were.

It was Mary I felt sorry for, because she was only trying to help. I hadn't meant to be short with her, but she didn't understand how it looked to the others- _me,_ accepting assistance from a _woman_, as if I wasn't the object of ridicule enough already! Then Fetz had to go and tease me and I had to take a swing at him. He danced easily out of the way of my fist. I overbalanced and fell. Naturally, there was much merriment at this, which only served to injure my pride and stoke my anger further. Thank God for this furlough, or we should have been at each others throats before long. I desperately needed some time alone to let my rage dissipate.

You'd think in such a populous city to be alone would be impossible. In London you are never solitary, for there are people about all hours of the day and night. However, if you look closer you'll see that each is so strictly intent on his own pursuit, he takes no notice of anyone else. Paradoxically, a man is never more alone than when he is with a crowd here. It might grow tiresome after a long time, being so ignored, I suppose, but at that moment it was exactly what I needed.

The hurrying masses passed around me like a flowing stream. I hadn't realized the extent of my discomfort with the cramped conditions aboard ship until I found myself in this wide sprawling city. I marveled that a man could walk all day in this town without seeing the end of it. I wasn't worried about getting lost, merely overjoyed to be master of my own fate for the first time in three months.

I was pleased to float along wherever that human current would take me, flotsam on the pedestrian wave. As late afternoon came on, it took me to Leicester Square. Here was a small green park of statuary surrounded by restaurants, theaters and gambling houses. The cafes and taverns overflowed with artists, musicians and bon vivants, spilling their excess into the streets of Soho. Strange smells and sounds mingled in the air as a full spectrum of humanity made the square its parade ground for the evening, with a vivacity and liveliness to be found no where else. Excitement thrummed and sighed in my blood like an intoxicating wine, urging me onward and for a moment, I fell in love with these surging, scheming, strangely dressed people. How joyous to be with them, autonomous and anonymous! My heart poured out gratitude for their spontaneous acceptance, awash with thanks for letting me go along with them, another fish in their vast school.

So caught up was I in this overwhelming sensation, I forgot to pay attention to the ground beneath my feet. This was slightly dangerous, for that day I walked on a cobblestone street for the first time in my life. Having grown up on island roads of hard packed earth and ship's decks of smooth, even boards, I had yet to master the trick of it. Had I kept my eyes on the ground, I should have avoided all trouble, but the temptation to look about was far too great. There were women in Leicester Square, I noticed, the first proper adult females I'd seen in three months, (though "proper" wasn't the word most would use for feminine persons clothed in such beguilingly attire as they). I saw a woman of knowing dark eyes wearing a necklace of tiny spherical pearls that lay in the crevice between her two voluptous round breasts, pushed up for maximum effect by a tight corset. As she watched me watching her, she tugged at a ribbon on her stiff bodice, pulling the lacing still tighter. Her pink breasts squeezed together as I watched, the strand of pearls lost completely between them.

As I stared, my foot caught in a crevice between two cobblestones. I pitched forward, raising my hands to break my fall. Luckily, the crowd was packed so close around me, that I ended up grabbing the man in front of me instead of hitting the ground. Feeling me tug the back of his coat, he let out a cry and spun angrily around to face me.

"What? What is this? Why did you grab me?" he shouted. "Were you trying to knock me down and steal from me? I ought to stave your head in! Thief! Speak!"

"Please, sir," I pleaded, drowning out his accusation, my voice cracked, from a recent lack of use. "It wasn't my fault- I tripped!" . His face was red with what I at first took to be fury, but realized later was sunburn. Under a black bicorn hat, his hair looked a sun bleached yellow-white and was gathered in a tanned leather pigtail down his back. His age I guessed to be a shade over forty. All in all, I took him straight away for a fellow seaman, though of a more elevated sort than an ordinary tar like myself; a lieutenant or captain, perhaps. He wore the blue coat, epaulets and shiny brass buttons of an officer in His Majesty's Navy. He had the tall, straight bearing of one and the forbidding look of command stamped on his sun-weathered face. I hoped he'd recognize that I meant him no harm and would not call an officer of the watch. There were things I might have trouble explaining to such a one as that.

"Hmmph!" he snorted as he prepared to let me of the hook. "Well just make sure you don't make a habit out of it an-"

He paused mid-word and his eyes grew wide, assuming such an expression of shock that at first I thought his gaze transfixed by some strange event occurring behind me, rather than anything related to my own person.

I looked over my shoulder, saw nothing amiss and turned back to look at him. .He was busy studying my old coat from the threadbare gold braid at the shoulders and mismatched buttons of the collar, to the double rolled cuffs at my wrists, his eyes trailing down to the shadowy reaches of the ragged hem that nearly touching the ground, obscuring my feet from public view. Not a stitch escaped him.

"That coat- where did you get it?" he asked sharply and clutched my shoulder.

"What?" I blinked at him.

The coat in question couldn't have been less than 30 years old if it was a day. My father said it brought him good luck when he wore it. Like most of my possessions, it wasn't in great shape; stained from too many gravy spills and splashes of ale, patches on the elbows and half its original buttons replaced with sewing kit extras that struggled to pass through the buttonholes. Still, I loved it like no article of clothing I'd ever owned. Though not particularly heavy, this serviceable garment kept out the bitter cold above decks and doubled as a cozy blanket to tuck up in at night. It was made of dark blue wool and ran longer than the usual style, even on my father, who was uncommonly tall.

"I say again, did you take that coat off somebody?"

I threw off his hand and raised my fist at him. "Belay that! I'm no thief! This was a birthday present, freely given!"

It _wasn't _a birthday present. I don't know why I lied about such a simple thing, other than that this rude personage had frightened all the honesty straight out of me, (honesty not being my most reliable of virtues even at the best of times).

"Steady on, lad! No need to take offense! A birthday present..." he repeated, silently working his mouth, as if testing the truth of this statement on his tongue. "What manner of business is he in, this person who bought it for you? Is he a ragpicker, then?"

"That's my father, you're talking about, if you please, sir. He's an honest innkeeper and former navy man like yourself." Also, not strictly true, (the navy part, not the innkeeper bit-_ that_ was solid).

The naval gentleman raised an eyebrow. "Indeed?"

"Aye! Now let me alone," I replied. I straightened up to my full height and gave him a hard look in the eye. I could just manage it by tilting up my chin.

The stranger did not meet my gaze. Instead he looked down at my feet, his eyes arrested by another point of interest. This time I had no trouble guessing what disturbed him, though what business he had in gawping at it like a bloody idiot for, that I couldn't see.

"Good God, your foot!" he gasped. I looked down, though I knew what I'd see. "It's- it's- it's- gone! You've only got one leg!" he cried.

"Really? Why bless my soul, I never noticed. How shocking!" I forced a laugh. It wasn't strictly true anyway; I have two legs, only one ends short at my right calf. I have a wood legpiece with real Indian rubber on the end-tip that serves me as a right foot and ankle. I can walk fine without a crutch or stick, though perhaps not as quickly as a man with two regular legs.

"B-b-ut-" he stammered, "it's not possible! And in speech so very like- oh very like- but not exactly- but the missing leg and the _coat!"_ he rambled on. "It's just not possible!"

"Why 'not possible'?" I demanded. "You've seen nothing more disturbing in your exalted naval career than a poor dismasted fellow trying to go about his ordinary business wearing something as outlandish as a_ coat_?"

I sighed, exasperated. Idiots determined to point out my missing foot to me, as if I were somehow unaware of it, had become a new source of vexation in my life. Back home, where people were accustomed to my appearance, no one thought to comment, but since leaving the island, I'd gotten some pretty odd reactions; people trying to be funny, people staring, or trying_ not_ to stare and so on, but this one took the cake.

"Ah, I see it is not news to you," the stranger said gently, coming to his senses. "Forgive me, it was a rude remark, carelessly uttered and it does you credit that you kept your temper. I'm sure it's not an easy thing for a young man to bear such an amputation. Pardon an old fool if, you will? I was just startled by the resemblance. You see, you're so very like a mate of mine from long ago. Why just this morning, I found myself thinking on him and here he is before me, younger than ever I knew him! Strange vision, indeed! A singular man he was, and I never thought to meet the like again, but now here we are. This world is full of surprises. Of course he wasn't exactly as you are, but there is something to this, if only one might uncover it! There must be! But let us start again, like proper fellows, for we haven't been introduced. What's your name, lad?"

"Jim," I answered sullenly, not mentioning my surname, which I didn't trust him with.

"Jim!" he exclaimed, completely ignoring my reluctance. "How delightful! Is it really Jim? Not James or Jordan or Jonathan or John?"

"Just Jim, sir," I replied, longing for him to be away already.

"And that's what they call you on board, is it?"

"Yes," I lied because what they called me on board didn't bear repeating in decent company. "But wait- what makes you think I'm a sailor?"

"Now this really is passing strange!" he exclaimed, ignoring me. "Do you know what? My Christian name is Jim as well!"

"It's a common enough name," I replied. "What d'they call _you _on board?"

"Me?" A sly smile crept in and turned up a corner of his mouth. "They calls me Captain."

"I don't think so," I answered back. "If you was a captain you'd have more stars on your shoulders. I'd figure you for a Lieutenant at most."

He frowned and glanced at the epaulets on his shoulder. "This is an old jacket, but have it your way. Will you walk with me Jim?"

He extended an arm out to me, but I stepped briskly ahead, shouldering past him, hands firmly in my pockets. "I go my own way. As for you, you may do as you please."

His long legs easily kept pace with me. "How old are you Jim?"

"Nineteen," I replied, adding five surplus years to my tally.

"I don't think you are," said the shrewd the naval gentleman. "I think in fact you cannot possibly be older than fifteen. You know it is wrong to lie. The good book says-"

"-that there are worse things than lying," I finished, defiantly.

"Tis true, one can't quibble with that. But you look hungry! Come, let me buy you supper, I owe you that much for unjustly accusing you before."

My stomach grumbled audibly at this. Suddenly, I became aware I was absolutely famished. In all the excitement of exploring London, I'd forgotten to eat since the hard tack and dripping I'd consumed on board that morning.

"You mean you'll pay for whatever I eat?" I asked greedily.

"All on my tab," he said. "There's a seamen's public house I know of not a block from here, if you'd be so kind as to follow me."

"I eat and drink at your expense," I narrowed my eyes at him. Hunger hadn't made me completely stupid. "What do you want from me in return?"

"The feeling that I'm helping someone who in another place and time, despite his faults, once assisted me. In addition, I'm writing a book about life in His Majesty's Navy," he added brightly. "You could answer questions for my research. I am a man of the sea, but I came into riches as a boy and was able to pay for a midshipman's berth for myself early on. I've forgotten what it's like being a common sailor. Though I suppose you're not such a common one at that." His eyes twinkled. "Still, there's much I could learn from you if you'd tell me."

We walked on to the tavern, the other Jim leading the way, with me trying to keep one eye on him and another on the treacherous cobblestones.

At the pub, the other Jim tossed a few coins on the bar. "Some food and drink for my friend and I," he said to the barman."We'll take that booth by the fire. I like to see a man when I talk to him."

I sat down across from him in the booth and shrugged off my coat. The fire's warmth was soothing, for it was early March and still not quite spring in England. I stretched out my legs, careful to keep the wooden one well clear of the sparks from the fire. "In what capacity do you serve aboard?" he asked as the serving woman brought the cups of gin to the table.

"Boatswain," I answered quickly.

"Cook's boy, I'm guessing," he amended, gazing up at me beneath hooded eyes.

"How did you-?"

"You'd not make able seaman on any ship I know of, not with a crippling injury like that. Plus, I'd guess that you're far too young to have risen that high up _before _you were wounded. You should have said cabin boy. At least that's more plausible."

I colored and looked down at my food.

"No, this won't do. I tell you what," he went on. "I'll stake you a tuppence for every one of my questions you answer truthfully. What do you think of that?"

"As you like," I affected indifference. The food was brought to the table. A girl brought the food and we tucked into our mince pies, each bite like a nibble off heaven's cloud for me after all that hard tack at sea. It was months since I'd last had really home cooked food and it nearly brought a tear to my eye. It was an unusual experience, me sitting being served dinner, rather than doing the serving. I kept having to squelch the urge to get up and clean something. A body could get used to such a thing, though. Now if only Mary was sitting there across from me all would be right with the world. I ate with messy abandon. The other Jim took longer, using his knife and fork like a proper gentleman, savoring his food.

_ A tuppence for every true answer. _What was this fellow playing at? Disturbing thought; Was he just buttering me up for a roll in the rafters? But pub didn't have any private upper floor I could see and it was too near the river for a basement. Why all the questions about my coat? Seemed quite an odd angle for a seduction, but then, who was I to say with my paltry experience? Was he really writing a book? Surely, he could find a better source of information than me. I knew nothing of the goods we shipped or where they were acquired. Then again, perhaps the nature of the_ how _instead of the _what_ of the goods was the real interest. Maybe he was looking for an informer, someone gullible enough to tell him about Captain Bright's attempts to side step docking and shipping taxes. He probably reckoned me an easy mark. Well, let him try. I could call his bluff if it came to it. I would "hold fast" just like the old knuckle tattoo said, evading all attempts to extract information, ply me with coin as he might.

And after such stalwart vow to myself, what do you think was the first thing he asked me, just as the greasy plates were borne away?

"You don't look much like your mother, do you?"

"My mother? What?" I asked in surprise. "What do you know of her? Tell me!"

"Is she dark skinned? African by any chance?" he inquired, calm as anything.

"Yes! And so what if she is? How do you know her?"

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere. One tuppence for you." He pushed a coin across the table.

"No, wait! Tell me! How-?"

"That wasn't our agreement, Jim. I ask. You answer. I pay. That is what we agreed."

I was suddenly at a loss for words.

"Now, how do I put this? Uh, it's a delicate matter, but I'm wondering, just thinking aloud here, you understand? You're not, I'm guessing, the child of her, uh, blood and body, are you?"

"Why? Because I'm white?" I was incensed. "It happens sometimes, when the father is white, like mine. Anyway she's my mother more than yours ever was, I'm sure! What right have you to imply-?"

"I imply nothing and mean no offense. Just simple curiosity, that's all. Tell me of your father. Are you of his blood then, got off another woman?"

"No!" I stood up and threw his money back at him. "I'll have no more of this! You insult my mother's honor and my father's pride ! You may be a captain or an admiral for all I care, but don't you dare think-!"

"Easy, easy there lad." He placed a calming hand on my arm. I shrugged it away. "What did I say? Curiosity, that's all." He returned the coins to my side of the table. " What does it hurt to tell me what I have already guessed?"

"Because you guessed wrong, that's why!"

"How wrong? Sit, have some gin. Tell me."

As I watched him I began to feel uneasy. Little did I know then, how much of myself I would end up sharing with this complete stranger. There were parts I left out of course, but I could just see my father at my shoulder frowning down at me. "You talk too much, that's your problem Jim. You'll talk yourself into the grave one day," was his severe warning.

How to explain to him how much I needed someone to talk to at that moment, someone I'd probably never see again, who'd never tell any friend of mine what he knew. Would my father understand if I told him what it was like for me on the ship, trying to maintain my cheerful, obedient, cook's boy disguise, in the face of it all? Making sure they never knew it cut me raw, the way the grown sailors laughed at me behind my back. Whole weeks at a time without anyone once calling you by your real name. The rude nicknames, that didn't even make sense except in the cracked world of their own addled brains. I couldn't do anything but grin and bear it. Sure I wanted to fight them- I itched to fight them, but it was impossible. They were grown men hardened by years of physical labor and bar fights and could have probably kicked me black and blue even if I had two good legs. I'd seen hot-headed Fetz get it from them enough times to know that. By far the worst though, was knowing that if not for my own stupidity, I wouldn't have been there at all. I could've been back home, safe and loved, if it wasn't for my blasted thirst for adventure and desire to prove myself good as any other man, combined with a desperate crush on the captain's young daughter.

A tankard of rum to add to the gin, was suddenly there at the other Jim's elbow, seemingly out of nowhere, interrupting my thoughts. I hadn't noticed anyone bring it. I felt myself strangely drawn to him. For these past three months it had been_ head down, mouth shut, do your work and don't attract attention_. I'd kept my own counsel, but it was antithetical to my nature. I was a tavern owner's son, after all, and I yearned to speak. Talking was what kept me alive. 

Let him ask me what he will, I had questions of my own in need of answers; answers that he might at long last be the one to supply. It didn't matter if he wanted to or not, I could _make_ him tell me the truth. I felt with one hand for my knife. It was there, in my pocket. _You've waited all these years to find out,_ I thought, trying to calm myself down,_ a few more minutes won't matter. _ I closed my hand around the tankard of rum he handed me and took a sip for courage. At least it was better than the gin.

"I was a foundling," I explained, "I discovered on the breast of a dead woman at my parents' inn."

"A dead woman? How did she-"

I shook my head and opened my palm for another coin. He gave it and I continued. "A man and woman arrived at my parents' inn one night from far away, brought in by tea clipper. By morning the woman was dead. She gave birth to a baby, but didn't survive. The man fled into the night never to be seen again and the tea clipper vanished likewise. No family came to claim the dead woman or her child. They buried her in the village churchyard and the innkeeper's wife- she couldn't have children of her own, y'see and she took me, the infant, as her son. The innkeeper, returned from a voyage at sea a year later to find me ensconced in his home. She would not relinquish me and so he learned to accept me and even love me perhaps, in his way. I'm their son, much as I'm anything else in this world."

"You have no idea who they were then, your natural parents?"

"None, I confess."

"A sad story, that." He fingered another two penny piece. "And not the only misfortune you've suffered in your short life either, I see. You call that 'dismasted,' am I right?" he asked, motion to my truncated leg. "But you're no more a ship than I am. It's a downright peculiar injury."

"Why peculiar? Pretty run of the mill seaman's wound, far as I'm concerned." I shrugged. "Take a look around Greenwich if you don't believe me."

"I have," he said. "Even been in the Greenwich Naval Hospital myself a stretch. And you're right, it's a common enough injury for an older seaman, but not for one as young as you."

"What can I say? A French cannonball carried it right off." It was my father's explanation for his own injury. Who knew if it was any truer than mine? "Plain bad luck, is all." There, let him respond to _that._ If he were who I thought he was, then he'd know it for the lie it was. I waited to gage his response.

"'You know," he said slowly. "for some reason, I don't think I believe you."

I schooled my expression to reveal nothing.

The other Jim rubbed the graying stubble on his chin, brushing a speck of grit out of his beard. "Son, I've seen powder monkeys your age knocked clear to the other side of a ship, torn in half by ball and chain shot, minced to pieces by the grapeshot. A small body takes the brunt of fire like that, you can bet he's done for completely, not just maimed. Hardly anything left of most of them, even for a burial at sea. Not to mention, the monkeys who prep the cannons always get those little spots of burn on their faces, from the blowback of the ash when the cannons fire and those scars on their hands from dealing with the powder. But not you lad, you're clean. A cabin boy, on the other hand, wouldn't normally be above deck in a fire fight, a cooper's apprentice neither. Which leads me to think neither one of these was the route you took to get to sea. Come, no more falsehoods, tell me young man, how in the world did you get here and what strange misadventures befell you on the way? "

Ah, this was it. I clenched my fist beneath the table. Now at last, the mystery would be solved! He was the man with the answers, he had to be. There had to be someone out there who knew the truth. But I wouldn't tip my hand, oh no, not yet. I'd get some payment for what I'd been through from him first. Nonchalant, I took a deck of cards from my pocket and began to deal. One for him, one for me. Jim and Jim, evenly matched with equal numbers each.

"What happened to you?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he sniffed and picked up his cards.

"It means-" I began and suddenly, felt my lungs go short on air. I breathed in deeply. Then I let out my breath, and with it, the shameful thing I'd never told Fetz or Mary. I just couldn't, it was too ludicrous, but there it was. "It means," I said, "_I don't know." _

"Don't know what?"

I looked down. "How this happened."

His eyes went wide. "Are you having me on? Come now, you can't be serious! What, you fell asleep one night and woke up like- like _that _in the morning? Rubbish! What do you take me for? I've heard some pretty tall tales from sailors in my day, but that's the limit!" 

By now my cheeks were hot and not because I'd lied. It was the honest truth, damn it! Why were lies so much easier for people to believe? And why did the truth surprise him? Of all people he was the one who was supposed to know! Unless he was a better actor than he let on. That was possible, I confessed to myself, trying to figure it out.

"Look," I ploughed on desperately, "I was discovered in that room at the inn just as you see me now. Let God strike me down straight if it ain't the truth. There was blood from the birth all over the place and the woman I presume birthed me, dead and not likely to give up any answers. The man with her fled before they came to find her and what I want to know is why and how? How did it happen? Was it the violence of my birth that lost me my foot, or was it the man who ran? Did he kill my mother and lop off my leg in the bargain? What sort of insane man leaves a dying woman and baby in a tavern? Or was it my natural mother, did she try to destroy me with poison, while I was still in the womb? Was it some kind of voodoo curse? A curse that killed her and drove him crazy? All my life I've listened to the idle chatter, putting up with the dull imaginings of ignorant minds, but what do I have to counteract it with?"

He squinted at me, as if confused. "What did your adoptive mother tell you?" he asked. "Surely she must have some thought on the matter, being the one who found you and all."

I nearly crumpled my cards in my fist. Why was he being so obstinate? "You don't understand. My mother...believes certain things..."

"Like what?" he asked. He cut his cards with the quick, cool, motions of a practiced player.

"Like, it was all on account of a dream." I blushed at the ridiculousness of it as I picked a new card from the pile. My mother loved to tell this story, much to my embarrassment.

"A dream?" He smiled vaguely. "How interesting. Tell me more."

God, I wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face with my fist. One quick swipe would do it. But then I'd never know. Fine, fine, I'd play his game, for now, as long as he told me in the end. And he _would _tell me. I was convinced he could not have sought me out otherwise. "A month before she found me at the inn, my mother, she had a vision in a dream. She dreamed she was gutting a fish for dinner, when suddenly it turned its head and spoke to her. It asked her what was her greatest desire in the world?"

"And what was it?"

"What does the woman always wish for in these types of stories? She wanted a child with her husband and the fish promised she would get what she desired. The fish said, 'One day a child will come to you in the shape of your husband and by this you will know him to be yours.'"

"And you came to her the next day?"

"I think it was a few months later, actually."

"'In the shape of her husband,' you said-"

"The fish said."

"Well, are you?"

I just looked at him.

"In the shape of her husband, the innkeeper?" he inquired patiently.

"Somewhat, I guess." I waved the uncomfortable subject away. "Anyway, my father said it was rubbish and I tend to agree with him."

"Your father, this innkeeper...what's he like?"

"A practical man, he is, holds no truck with superstition. I guess he never thought me of much use, but he loved my mother too much to rule against what brought her happiness. I've heard folks call him a rogue, but never in respect to her. He's always done what's right and proper by my mother, not like any other sailor or captain, I've ever seen. I've never met a man loved anything else as much in this world; not gold, jewels or freedom, even, like he loves my mother. She saved his life, years and years ago, before I came on the scene. He was wounded so badly at the time, even the doctor thought it a waste of effort to treat him, but not her. She insisted they care for him and no man could've survived what he did without her help. Understand, I'm not of his shape, not really. He had his whole leg taken clean off." I made a sawing motion at my hip and grimaced. "Right up to here. No wooden leg for him. Nothing left to attach it to. Still, she fell in love with him, wounded as he was. Hid him from the redcoats in the planter-man's cane shed when they came for him. Risked her life to keep him secret. Course, he near lost his own in turn, turning gentleman o' fortune, trying to make enough scratch to buy her freedom, take her away from the fields forever, so I guess they're even."

Abruptly, I stopped my tongue. There was an odd, hungry sort of look to his face just then that disturbed me. It dawned on me, then, that his attitude was something other than ordinary curiosity. I sensed that there was some information that he badly wanted to know in what I had just said. Why? This didn't figure into who I assumed he was, but I pushed the thought away.

"Royal flush," announced the other Jim. "Afraid I win, young Jim."

I smiled graciously. At least this part was in line with my expectations. "Let's up the ante on this one," I suggested. "Say another tuppence for each hand won."

"Deal."

I dealt. He studied his cards as he talked. "There's nothing wrong with your mother's dream. I rather fancy it, in fact! Quite the Romantic notion. I wish a fish like that would come to me in my sleep to grant me _my _greatest desire!"

_And what would that be? _I wondered. If only I knew the answer to that question, I felt, I'd have the answers to plenty of mine.

"Dreams are all well and good," I said coolly, "when you're a wee lad and don't know any better, but I'm grown now. I'm grown and want to know."

"Know what?" he asked blithely.

"_Everything you do._" My jaw clenched as I jabbed the point of my open clasp knife into the wood of the table right in front of me. He pushed back with a start. I avoided spearing the cards. No use ruining my only pack, even for this. "I know that you were the man, the one who left! So tell me. What was the real reason? What really happened? It was _you_ what did this to me, wasn't it? A defenseless little infant, what couldn't fight back on his own? Because I ain't little anymore. And I ain't defenseless. My father taught me how to fight back and fight _dirty." _ I picked up the knife and held the point level with his chest. "I'm done with waiting. Tell me. NOW."

He laid his hand of cards carefully on the table, face down, as if he really intended to go back to the game. Then he raised his hands so I could see he held no weapon. I expected him to look frightened, but in this I was disappointed. Nothing about him suggested a man scared by what I said, only confused.

"I don't understand," he confessed to me.

I gritted my teeth. "Yes. You. Do. You recognized me. Out there, on the street. Why? How?"

"I thought you were someone else," he said calmly.

"No! That doesn't make sense! Tell me the truth! I'm _your_ son, isn't it? You're the man- the man who ran? You're the only one left alive now who saw what really happened! "

He smiled sadly. "Listen lad, you're not my son. For your sake I wish you were. But you can't be. I don't have children of my own. I _can't_ have children."

"I don't believe you!" I cried and my voice broke like a cracked bell.

"Oh, don't you now?"

The other Jim smiled sadly at me, his mask of authority slipping. Underneath I fancied I saw a man as capable of hurt as I was, with a heart like mine that could be broken. Had been broken, I amended.

"I'm truly sorry lad," he reiterated with a shake of his head, "much as I'd be proud to call a smart and capable boy like you my son, no blood of mine flows through your veins." He coughed delicately into a handkerchief. "I was wounded, quite early on in my naval career, in an publicly unmentionable place, and so, to have children for me is... unfortunately quite impossible... Ah, now who's staring?"

I blushed, for he had caught me. Just because I'd had people do it to me a thousand times, didn't make me immune to the natural human impulse.

"Now don't feel too sorry for me," he smiled at my saucer eyes. "I have a lovely wife, and am pleased to love her daughter as any natural father might love his. I've adopted her as mine daughter, though she's not of my own flesh and blood."

"I don't believe you," I said, more uncertain with each passing moment. At some point I'd put the knife down without being aware of it.

"Look here Jim, I've never seen you before in my life. That's the honest truth."

"But you said you recognized-"

"I know what I said, but I recognized_ someone else _in you. Someone I think maybe we both know. Can you-"

"But if it wasn't you what saw me born, who else was it? Who was there? Who can tell what really happened to me?"

"Beats me," he shrugged.

"No! That's ridiculous!" I felt a hot prickly feeling behind my eyes. _No tears, _I steeled myself. _Not now. _ "You don't honestly believe I got this way because of a _dream? _ There's got to be a real reason! Look, you can see me- in the flesh- I'm not some magical boy from a fairy tale. This is real life and in real life there are_ reasons_ why these sort of things happen!"

"Yes, just not the ones we'd like," he commented.

"What?"

"I'm just guessing," he continued, haphazardly reshuffling his cards as he spoke, "but did you ever think it might've been something to do with how you grew in your ma's belly? I've seen a man's foot cut off and a wound like that bleeds something terrible. Can kill a man outright if not cauterized and that's a grown man, mind, not a little baby with only a pint's worth of blood to lose. My guess is no one human did that to you. The great baker in the sky, skimping a little on the standard portion of human batter, maybe? Who knows?

I bristled at this. "People aren't cakes! Babies aren't born missing parts of their body!"

"Ah, but they are," said the other Jim, slyly. "And in stranger ways than that, too. Anyway, how would you know? How many babies have _you _seen born?"

None, it was true.

"There you are," he said with a nod. "There are definitely stranger things both humans and animals, than dreamnt of in _your_ philosophy, Jim."

"What?"

"I've an old friend," he continued, "a doctor. He used to be an army physician, but he doesn't see many patients these days. He works for John Hunter, the great anatomist, in London, cataloging his collections. Now what Hunter collects aren't pretty shells or dusty old fossils. No, what he fancies are anatomical oddities of all different species. He has dry specimens, wet specimens, stretched and cured and pickled specimens. My friend, he catalogs them all. I've been to see it and really, it's quite the thing to behold. A full comprehensive record of all manner of forms, including those born with extra appendages and those born with less. It's not uncommon in the animal world."

"But not in humans."

"I don't know. Might be even more common, who's to say without proper study. It's one story, anyway," he offered.

" And what would you have me do with a story like that, anyway?"

"I don't know," he said. "Why do you have to_ do_ anything with it? "

"And what can I tell people? That I'm a sport of nature? Not to mention, I can't get my revenge on the man who did this to me, if no one's bloody well responsible!"

The other Jim shrugged. "Why get revenge at all? I have it on good authority, you know that revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be." He revealed his hand of cards. Mine was higher, as I knew it would be. He didn't have many cards left now. I collected my winnings with no sense of triumph. "Believe me, it's just a waste of time," he reiterated.

"Is it now?" I sneered. "And how would _you _know?"

His eyes grew large. "I know," he said, his voice remaining calm and steady, even as mine had broke all over the vocal range. "Because I've spent nigh on twenty years to this day seeking revenge on a particular person and now I see it was all to no good."

"And who would _you _need to revenge yourself on? You being a rich and fancy captain and all that? Looking for the man that stuck you in the privates or something?" I sneered. It was a foul thing to say, but I didn't care.

"A man I knew once," he began, stiffly ignoring my last salvo, "a long time ago, when I was a young lad like yourself. He styled himself a sea cook too, oddly enough. I met him just after I lost my father, an innkeeper, to consumption. I'd wager he was somewhere between forty and fifty years old ere I met him. Along came this man into my lonely young existence, a man who talked to me like an adult, who treated me like what I said mattered for the first time in my life. How could I help but grow fond of him. I had no one else. But then this man, this man whom I loved like a father, betrayed me. Not only me, either, but a whole slew of other people who'd come to trust him. His own shipmates. I suppose he cared for me a way. He didn't allow his comrades to kill me when they wanted to, but he was not so fond of the others. He murdered some himself, ordered the deaths of others, honest seamen all, just to satisfy his own greed. I watched their sentences carried out. There was nothing I could do, I was just a boy. I saw that when he killed, it was not in the heat of passion, but in cold blood, efficient and skilled. Not a second's hesitation, he had. You murder a man, it's over for him in an instant, for his family though, it last the rest of their lives, I learned that after. When I made my way back to England I met the families of the murdered men. I met Mary, the daughter of a man called Tom Redruth who was killed at this man's hand. I saw it. It was she, who, years later, after her own husband died, became my wife."

"And why should that interest me?" I asked angrily.

He looked at his very last playing card, meditatively stroking his broad thumb over its black and white patterned back. "I made a promise to my wife the first time I met her. I promised her that if I ever discovered the whereabouts of this man who murdered her father I would ferret him out and kill him. You see, Jim, this man could not be brought in front of a magistrate. He was too wily a talker for that. He had escaped the justice of the crown a number of times already, even when I knew him. Personal vengeance is the only tool left in such a case. Since my wife and I joined in holy union, I have taken it upon myself to erase him from the earth like the miserable blot upon humanity he is. That is the only way, you see, that he can never hurt anyone's family again."

"And did you do this thing? Did you erase this blot, as you call him?" I asked, an uneasy feeling settling in the pit of my stomach.

"No, I never did. I couldn't find where he was hiding. As the years passed and I knew his age to be advancing. He would be around seventy years old now and so, I grew to believe him dead. For years now I supposed him to have expired quietly in bed in some obscure place, unremarked and unnoticed. And then today, of all days I meet you!"

"Wait, what do I have to do with any of this?" The room seemed to move and turn around me, placing me off balance. I told myself it was just the drink and not my increasing sense of dread. "You think _I_ murdered this Redruth fellow? I probably wasn't even born when it happened! "

"No, no, not _you, _Jim," the stranger gave a harsh laugh, " I meant, the _other_ J. Silver!"

"The other _what?"_

"You may have 'J. Silver' written on the inside of your coat, but I'll wager you weren't the man what wrote it," he winked at me.

"What are you talking about? There's nothing written in my coat!"

"Oh no? Take a closer look at the inside of the collar."

I whipped the coat off my chair. As I lived and breathed, something _was _written there! The ink was so faint and worn, I could only plainly decipher a capital 'J' and 'S' without holding it up directly to the firelight, but there it was, just as he said. The origin of the handwriting, of course, was unmistakable. "How did you know?" I gasped. "Who told you?"

"The coat was a gift from your father, eh? A certain John Silver, 'Long John' to his friends and enemies?" he asked with a nasty twinkle in his eye.

My head reeled and I thought I was going to vomit. How was this possible? I'd given him away my own father, to this man, this false Jim who wanted to kill him! How could I have been so stupid? I assumed this man's interest in me was somehow connected my own past. I never thought to connect him to someone else's past entirely! I was so eager to finally learn the truth of my birth, I'd never even considered...and now it was too late. I had wanted to draw this stranger out, coerce him through trickery into telling me what I longed to know, but all along, he'd been the one sounding_ me_ out! And here I was like the reeds at the bottom of the river, watching this other Jim's boat bearing down right over me, flattening my life beneath his hull.

There was no way my father could fight this other Jim. This man couldn't be more than forty years old, still strong and vigorous, well muscled beneath his captain's coat. I thought of my father, who was already breaking down, I could see that suddenly, though I had never noticed it back home, the slow changes weakening him to the point where he spent all his time sitting smoking on the porch or snoring in an old chair by the fire. His eyes were too bad to read anymore and when it rained his rheumatism kept him in bed for days at a time. He was too old to face this stranger and I could see, in my mind's eye, this other Jim, swooping down on him before he knew what was happening dragging him from the shady porch of the inn, down to the beach to shoot him in the sunshine. I felt my hands slick with spilled rum and thought of my father's blood already wet on my hands, his death my fault.

"It's not true!" I gasped, like a drowning man come to surface. "You've got the wrong man's son! I don't know any John Silver!" I could think of nothing better.

He glanced lazily down at me from behind his one left over card. "Oh come now, Jim. Didn't we agree on no falsehoods between us? You can't take that path, not now. Why just look at that coat! Don't tell me you patched it under the arm like that yourself? That's the side he stuck his crutch under, I'd wager my life!"

"No, it's mine, from my crutch, " I protested, feebly.

He waved my words away. "And here I thought you so proud to go about on your own two feet!"

"Please," I could feel the tears spill over down my cheeks. "Don't do this. You said- you said you have no need for revenge anymore, isn't that right? That it's a waste of time! Please Mr. Jim, Captain, I can see you're a good man at heart! Can't you forgive him?"

"I can forgive," said Jim solemnly. "I have forgiven him, in fact."

"Then why-?"

"But all the forgiveness in the world won't bring those dead men back, or keep him from doing the like again, to someone else's father."

"But he's someone's father! He's my father!"

"Aye and there's the rub," said the other Jim. "Here I find you, a boy, much the same as I was when my father died and I took this fellow, Silver as my parent in absentia. Here you say to me, unprompted, 'I am his son, much as I've ever been anything in my life.' And now, you see, I can't keep my promise, for I know what it's like for a boy to lose his Pa. I wouldn't do what was done to my wife and me to you. He named you Jim, after all, it would be like doing it to myself. Of course you cheat at cards much better than I did-"

I dropped my cards. Now this, on top of everything else was just unbelievable. "How did you know about the-?"

"Cheating? Simple. Those little specks of tar on the back of the cards? You use them to mark the backs of the cards you want. You can't see it with the pattern there, but you can feel it with your fingers if you know where to touch. He taught me the same trick way back when. We used to practice it to pass the time." He smiled. "I'd forgotten all about it, till now. "

"I'm sorry."

"Promise you'll never cheat at cards again?" he asked me. "Honestly, it's a skill more likely to get you killed than anything I can think of cannonballs included." I stared up at him.

I nodded seriously. "I promise never to do it again, if you promise you'll leave my father alone. I may be older, and on my own, but... I still- I still need him. You understand. Promise me, you'll let him pass away naturally in his own time."

He glanced at my fallen hand before shuffling the cards back into the deck with the rest. "You have my word, as one Jim to another. Anyway, he'll not have too many good years left above ground, I'd wager and precious little peace in the afterlife, you can be sure. You'd be surprised, son, it all happens far quicker than you suspect. You should go home to your parents while you still have them. Go home before you lose what few parts the great jester in the sky left you with. This sea life's never brought anyone anything but trouble."

"And yet," I still had the nerve to say, "you'll go back to it when your leave is up?"

"Of course." He studied the tankard of ale in his hand. "It's like strong spirit. Bad as it makes a man feel, somehow he always finds himself coming back to it. Don't ask me why. There may be a reason, but I don't claim to know or understand it." He gazed across the table, eyes piercing blue as a bright summer sky. "Speaking of, isn't it time you got back to your ship? Unless you've chosen to stay in London, of course."

"N-n-no sir." I wobbled to my feet.

"Too much to drink, ah well. Mind you avoid the press gangs on your way back to the docks."

He clutched my hand to steady me, before I could push it away and pressed something hard and round into my palm. A coin. I looked down at it gleaming in the firelight, yellow with real gold. He closed my hand over it and guided it into the pocket of my father's old coat. "It's a piece of eight," he said with a sly grin.

"Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight!" I cried in reflex at his words, mimicking my ancient parrot Flint's voice. I laughed with relief. "Pieces of Eight!"

At this, the other Jim went white as a new sheet. I felt him sway slightly against me, as if in need of a little steadying himself.

"What did I say? I'm sorry, please, it's just what my crazy parrot back home used to shout at everyone," I explained quickly, anxious that he shouldn't reconsider his promise. "I always assumed it was just nonsense words."

"J-j-j-just use it to buy yourself a new coat," he said, pointing to the strange coin.

Still looking rather pale, he stepped up out of the subterranean pub, faster than I could follow. Hastily, I made my way up the rickety stairs after him to the surface, emerging in the cool gray rain of the London night. I glanced around, finding him nowhere. The theatres had just let out, the crowds swallowing up the other Jim, as if he had never been there to begin with.

Gradually, my head cleared and I followed the drizzling mist out to the banks of the great river. As much as I'd longed to go ashore before, now I was ready to get back to my ship.


End file.
